Tag: Homeschooling

  • Big Damn News

    Wow. I don’t even fully know how to wrap my head around it. Actually, I can’t. I’ll probably be able to later, but after today, I am still in shock. I’ll get to today later.

    Our daughter is 16 years old and starting her junior year. She has been homeschooled since the start. She is now officially a public school student.

    She still won’t be attending a traditional school. As a matter of fact, for people who have always used mainstream schools, she will still seem like a homeschooler, but for somebody like me, who has been homeschooling for a very long time (and for the vast majority did so as a willful underground homeschooler), it is a big psychological difference. Filling out all those forms in triplicate and sitting there while office people were handing out detentions right and left almost made me explode in hives.

    While it is possible to homeschool for free (especially if you put a massively massive amount of effort into rounding up free resources and scotch taping them together into a complete curriculum) it is much easier if you pour some money into it. Like with so much in life, money gives you quite a bit of access and freedom. Right now we are in a place where we are putting money into starting a new business, so the smart financial thing to do is at least check out the government funded option.

    So, we looked at the charter schools that offer online schooling, and we found an interesting hybrid option, that seems fairly idealistically education focused (I think many of the major online players are highly financially motivated). I am hoping it will be a very good fit for her.

    Tonight, we go attend our first parent night. The horrors.

    Anyhow, today… Ugh, today. I… eew. Today, we went in to complete enrollment, and I was completely mentally unprepared for how dreadfully long it was going to take. While the curriculum she is using is online, it is tied to a real brick and mortar school. A LARGE brick and mortar school. We had already been in to speak with the people who run the online program, and had been given a few papers and told to take those and a set of papers to prove we are who we say we are, to the main school attendance office. It took a day to assemble all the “show me your papers” papers, and then we dutifully made our way to campus. We arrived and went to the attendance office with our stack of paper work, and had to wait over a half hour just for somebody to talk to us (People there for enrollment needed to take a red number ticket). From what I overheard, the dean of attendance had made the office staff send out “summons” to every student who had missed one period or more since the start of the school year. The office was being overrun with students who were being written detention slips. It was all very disturbing, because the staff member would say something like, “Were you here yesterday?” To which the teen would non-respond by standing there. The staff person would repeat themselves. The teen would slowly shift their weight from one leg to the other. The staff person would repeat themselves and the teen’s mouth would drop open and a noise like “uuuuuh” would come out. The staff member would ask yet again and the teen would mutter “no”. Then the staff would ask if they had a note for the absence, which would then start the painful process of getting that question answered. We watched this happen dozens of times. Ouch.

    It was finally our turn to speak to somebody (yay red ticket 61) and they handed me a new giant stack of forms to fill out. WTF? Why not hand that to me when I arrived? I sat and filled out the forms, which took another 30 minutes, and then I turned those in, at which point they gave me a gold piece of paper with check boxes, and I was supposed to go from the attendance office to the special programs office. At that office, a person checked one of the boxes and signed my form. Then we were sent to the health office. At the health office a nurse came and removed 3 pieces of paper from our giant stack. Then she gave us a new piece of paper to take home and fill out. Then she tested the kid’s hearing and eyesight and weighed and measured her (she appears to have grown an inch in the past 6 months since her last doctor appointment… seriously?) and then she checked the little box on our gold piece of paper and sent us to the counseling office. We went to the counseling office to unlock our next achievement, and a woman with excellently applied eyeliner, and a complete disdain for us, sorted our stack of paper into separate smaller stacks and carefully stapled those together in some magical fashion. This allowed her to check off a box on our gold paper and send us on our way to the cafeteria, when we were thwarted by the ringing of a bell.

    We had to leave campus and go have lunch because the lady guarding the cafeteria couldn’t check our gold sheet while handling feeding time at the zoo.

    We went and ate some crappy fast food, and made our way back to campus and unlocked the lunch room achievement. We went on to the last level to discover that the boss monster had already left, and we’d have to complete a portion of our quest another day.

    In the meantime, she did get some classes picked out, and supposedly we will soon have an email explaining her userID and login information, so she can go check out the interface.

    I am very hopeful that this will work out well. Supposedly there are multiple teachers to interact with via email, chat and phone, so she can get help fairly rapidly, which, in theory should free up more of my time so that I can work and potentially earn more money. We are still negotiating a few of her previously earned high school credits because national standards and CA standards don’t quite align, so it looks like she is going to need to squeeze in an extra semester of world history. Also part of her previous math work won’t be credited as math, but they will give her elective credits for it. My only concern is that she is so easily exhausted as she is still feeling the brutal effects of mono, and we homeschooled year around, meaning that on any given day, her total work load was typically lighter because she was working less hours, but more days. We are letting her take 1 AP class, even though she still isn’t back to full health.

    After spending several hours on campus, it appears that I hate high school even more now than I did when I was attending it as a student.

    Now I need to go nap, or soak in Benadryl, or perhaps just drink a lot of alcohol. Maybe all three.

  • More Whining

    I sort of more or less chilled this weekend and tried to relax, but today came and the overwhelming stress of all I need to get done hit and I could not stop kicking myself for not staying on task. I was so busy kicking myself, I couldn’t really manage to get back on task. It was a shit day.

    I did make a small batch of chicken stock, which is now cooling. I much prefer homemade stock to store bought, because I control what goes in it, and it is more cost effective too. Chicken stock is a staple item in my kitchen. I think that is pretty much the extent of my accomplishments today, and it was a small batch.

    I did a little bit of grocery shopping today, but that was also an exercise in stress. Basically anything that I cannot find, that was a regular thing for me to purchase “back home” sends me into a fit of feeling sorry for myself, as if I need any extra help with that. I am really just pathetic and annoying at this point, even to myself, and I know I am a pain in the ass for other people to deal with.

    It is no help that I am leaving in a few days on one trip, and then getting back and leaving almost right away on another trip (but having to cram in a work party in between). This will be basically another whole month without my husband and I am just already so done with being apart.

    I also just utterly do not have the energy or patience to be the mother to a teenager. Yet, there she is, every day. It isn’t just the act of parenting that takes so much energy, it is being near the orbit of all that teenage baggage. It just sucks the life out of me.

    Tomorrow I get to go be around dozens of teenagers. Also I get to go to a church. That is where an area homeschool teen group has their monthly meetings. If I never post again, assume I burst into flames, from one or the other. Or perhaps it will be having to meet the homeschooling parents that will do me in.

    We are also supposed to bring some sort of potluck dish for lunch (which I failed to remember about while grocery shopping), a tray of cookies to share, which I think I am just going to refuse (Holy shit, a TRAY of cookies from every family? I don’t even want to be around that many teens when they haven’t consumed 4 pounds of sugar each), plus a can or two for the church food pantry (which I also failed to remember while grocery shopping). Tomorrow morning I will go to the grocery store and sort something out for that meeting, and no doubt have another pity party over not finding what I want and am familiar with.

    Is there a magic potluck dish that will make them like my daughter and make her feel welcome and happy here? Is there one which will make them hate her and make her so miserable that I never have to go to one of these damn meetings again? Can I just bring a bunch of eggplant and okra? I suppose what I really need to do is the same thing I do at every potluck. Eat before I go.

    I feel like shit.

  • Am I Twisted?

    I took one look at this site and thought “Homeschooling craft/history projects!”

  • My Homeschooling Experience – Part 2

    “What about homeschooling? You know it’s not just for scary religious people any more.”
    – Buffy Summers *

    I addressed a bit of the why and the how we got started homeschooling in a previous post.
    (more…)

  • My Homeschooling Experience – Part 1

    On one of my local homeschooling lists the topic of “Why do YOU homeschool?” came up last week, with everybody happily sending out their uplifting touchy-feely and typically godly reasons for homeschooling. I would never respond on the list to such a thread, because, like most places in my life, I do not fit in. It isn’t that I particularly care about being even more the black sheep than I already am, I don’t. Our kid has to function in this community though, so I tend to keep my mouth shut a lot. That, and I don’t really care to waste my breath.
    (more…)

  • ill-mannered post

    I am subscribed to various groups that I don’t enjoy being subscribed to, but do need the occasional bits of useful information that happen to get posted. Recently a “discussion” about manners has broken out on one. I decided to torture myself and read it. I do not always treat myself very well.

    This is a large group which meets in person regularly. I very rarely attend. The flurry of messages started because somebody posted a complaint about the general behavior of many of the children at a recent lunch. Behavior such as yelling, sitting on top of tables, making huge messes with no attempt at cleaning, and purposefully spilling water were listed. I was not there. I do not know what happened THIS time. I do know that part of the reason that I rarely attend such things is because I am anti-social, and part of the reason is because the behavior of many of the members and their children is totally unpleasant for me to be around. This leaves me inclined to believe the original poster’s overall impression of the level of manners on display. Other aspects of the original complaint did rub me the wrong way, not that anybody argued with her on those points.

    The responses started.

    Boys will be boys. Kids enjoying being kids. I am blessed by a special needs child who is loving and full of energy. Every child is different and not all are calm and quiet as apparently you are lucky enough to have. We work so hard and it is nice to spend time talking to adult friends and that distracts us from watching the kids, but we all know what that is like and should be understanding. We all have bad days sometimes so we should be supportive when the kids are having bad days. Well I know, having four kids, I can’t always keep an eye on all of them at once. If you think a child is behaving in an inappropriate or unsafe manner you should say something, we should all look out for each other. Sorry if I am not as perfect of a mother as you. Yes they are a bit excited and enthusiastic but they are overall so much better behaved than other kids I see.

    On and on and fucking on.

    The whole thing irritates the shit out of me. I can’t attend events which should be interesting and educational because they let their kids be so fucking noisy and distracting that it drowns out the point of being there. I can’t set foot in a restaurant during certain times. I am rarely able to stand taking my daughter to those kid oriented places. We order books online rather than making use of the library because that is cheaper than paying the attorney fees when I finally snap from the noise and rudeness and running around, not to mention the scribbled on books in the library.
    (more…)

  • Yep, still typing

    This year marks the 12th Christmas we have not celebrated. We talked about it. We thought about it. We determined it was not providing us with the purported joy. We agreed. We decided. We quit. We told the people we felt we needed to.

    Our daughter is 11. She grew up not celebrating. While the concept of a child, and what I would teach them, was part of the decision, as a person she has been one of the difficult aspects of it. The feeling of being different, of not being normal, can be hard on a child. People like to poke at differences. They want to know why. They want the difference explained and defended, or *fixed*. They think they have the right to that.

    One December when she was 5 we went to get her picture taken at some crappy in store photo place. She was cute when she was 5 though, so any photos would do and the cheaper was much better for the wallet. A few reasonable sized photos, plus 200 little useless throw away ones so they could advertise a large bundle, for $4.99. It’s a long way from art, but it made my grandmother happy. The button pushing salesmonkey asked her what she was doing for Christmas and she shrugged and responded that we didn’t celebrate Christmas. Salesmonkey freaked out. “What do you mean?! What do you do?!” Salesmonkey stares at me wondering why my child is retarded and lying, “You do celebrate Christmas, don’t you? Why is she saying that?!” I shook my head. “Why not?!!!” Salesmonkey wailed. The kid was traumatized.

    A few weeks later, in January, we were at our favorite (at the time) sushi place. One of the chefs asked her what she had gotten for Christmas and she froze up. She did not want a repeat of the last scene. He asked again. She looked at me. He looked at me. Her behavior was quite odd. She was always extremely friendly with this chef and now it looked like she didn’t know how to speak. “We don’t celebrate Christmas,” I told him. He looked at her and smiled warmly, “Neither do I.” She beamed.

    One of the things that catches attention from certain people about not celebrating is the “not Christian” aspect. Most of the Christians we run into are used to being in the comfortable majority in the country. They’ve heard of the other big religions, but we don’t *look* (Muslim, Jewish, or one of them there “eastern religions”). This means we might be something else, something worse. I’m already long comfortable with the fact that in pretty much every aspect of my life, I am something worse, but this is another area that is harder on the kid.

    Like with most things, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, and we chose to homeschool. Now, most things about homeschooling are really wonderful, and we have some terrific friends who homeschool. However, there is a rather large sized portion of the homeschooling community who are not just “I was raised Christian, so I mark the Christian box” but are instead fervently Christian. We interact with these people at group events, classes, field trips, sports days and more. “What church do you go to?” is commonly asked within the first 5 sentences by many of these people. Now I cannot begin to give a rat’s ass about somebody who doesn’t want to talk to me anymore because I don’t go to church, I mean, really I am grateful if they are going to weed me out for that reason. Still a kid likes to have friends, and more than that. A kid does not like to be teased and bullied. Ever seen a 10 year old, and more than a foot taller, boy get physical with a 7 year old girl because when he asked if she believed in Jesus, she gave “In my family religion is personal and we don’t talk about it outside the home.”as her response? Well, I have.

    Over the years we’ve learned little tricks. Stick her in a Harry Potter t-shirt when going to an event with a new group. It keeps a certain element from even starting to interact with her. Avoid events from Thanksgiving through mid January. I don’t enjoy being out and about then anyway. We won’t lie, but why invite trouble, when it always shows up of its own accord. Yet here I am writing it out on LJ and posting it public. I asked her. None of those kids should be reading my posts anyway, but somebody might. Does she care? She said to post. At 11 she is obviously a lot more immune to the reactions on this subject than she was at 5.

    Things I have been called (not in jest) because I do not celebrate Christmas have included:

    • Grinch
    • Scrooge
    • smart
    • lucky
    • heathen
    • crazy
    • child abuser

    Yes, I’ve been told it is child abuse to not have her celebrate Christmas. Some people have cried actual tears upon hearing that we don’t celebrate.

    One relative lets their kids think we are Jewish so they don’t have to explain something else.

    My MIL quit giving us birthday gifts. Oh wait. She didn’t quit. She has become chronically late with them. She sends us gifts at Christmas, wrapped in Christmas paper and writes Happy Birthday on the cards. In case you are wondering, our birthdays are in July.

    Mainly people want to know what we DO instead. We don’t do anything specific. We are glad to have a day when people don’t tend to call, and we often accomplish stuff around the house and catch up on to do list stuff. The only thing that makes it different from other days is the fact that other people are busy celebrating it. If we eat out, we don’t have many options, but we’ve learned that we can usually find a Chinese restaurant open.